


When the Bonds are Broken

by EjBlaKit



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben's dead so what's she hoping to find?, Crack elements treated seriously, Damaged characters inside and out, Enemies to Lovers, Everyone is not okay, F/M, Force Nonsense, M/M, Slow burn for all the ships, The Aftermath of TRoS, There is no New New Republic, Trapped on an isolated planet, War breaks people, it's a continuation, this is not a fix it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:21:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22253323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EjBlaKit/pseuds/EjBlaKit
Summary: She hugged her arms around her torso. “Ever since I got back it’s just …”“You miss him,” Poe said with surprise, and the realisation was like a sucker punch to the gut. He didn’t know how he’d missed it, how they’d all missed it, it was so obvious.“I want to find him,” she said. “I need to find him.”“Ben? But he’s dead.” It wasn’t quite a question, but it was, and Poe felt more than a little out of his depth.“I know he is,” her admittance only confused him further, “but there has to be a way. I feel … Poe, in me there’s this space where he used to be, and it hurts.”---Poe doesn't know what the end of the war means for him.Hux shouldn't be alive, but someone deemed him worthy enough to save.Rey is broken, empty without the other half of her dyad.Ben Solo is dead.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 19
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my friends, it's been some time.  
> I won't lie, TLJ killed my fanfic drive, but TRoS punched me in the face, kicked me while I was down and jizzed all over my remains. Delightfully graphic, I know.  
> I'm putting it out there: I LOVED TRoS.  
> I don't need discussions about it. I thought it was handled well (except for Rey apparently needing to be someone *cue dramatic eye roll*), the Reylo in me was thoroughly satisfied, even if the Hux lover in me felt a tad short changed. 
> 
> This is NOT a Fix-it fic.  
> This is a continuation, in verse. The what happened after.
> 
> _____
> 
> Any and all mistakes are my own. This baby is unedited. I'm flying without a co-pilot.

She was beyond furious. Livid, perhaps, to an extent she’d never felt before. 

The ex-General was in a cell, chest bandaged and currently unconscious. But he was alive, somehow. Still breathing amongst those that had been directly affected by his horrendous ideology and decisions. Not for one moment did she believe he was a changed man, she’d heard what Finn had said. That he had helped them escape purely to spite Kylo Ren. 

Except Ben Solo was dead and Armitage Hux was still, disgustingly, alive. Pulled from an escape pod on a no-name moon after the Resistance had followed the weak distress signal. 

She wanted to yell at him, scream at him, but he was such a frail figure on the bunk, an arm flopped over the side. It was difficult, but setting aside her anger was important. Was something she had to work hard to do. It still festered inside of her, lingering along the edges, but she knew it wasn’t all her. It was something deeper, more insidious, a relic of her grandfathers still trying to twist its way into her heart. 

“What is it?” His voice was whisper thin, tenuous on the air. It still had the strength to make her jump though, so absorbed in her own mind that she hadn’t sensed his shift to awake.

“Nothing from you,” she snarled.

“Ren,” he said instead, pale lashes flickering as his eyes opened, glassy as he stared up at the ceiling. Rey crossed her arms over her chest, defensive. 

“He died as Ben Solo,” she said, anger harshening her tone. 

“If he died.”

“He did. I was there,” her breath misted the transparisteel divider between them, momentarily clouding her view of him. He reappeared and was now looking at her, face still slack, though his eyes had narrowed slightly. 

“Perhaps,” the ex-General said.

“You should be the one who is dead,” she snapped, anger reigniting, wondering why she was even there, looking into that tiny cell containing a frail shell of a man. She should be on the surface, helping Finn with his work. 

“Perhaps,” the ex-General said again. Rey had heard enough and turned her back on him, stalking away. 

The sun stung her eyes momentarily after her jog up the stairs, causing her to pause briefly in the doorway and take stock of herself. She shouldn’t have gone down there, she’d had no reason to, but it weighed on her so heavily. The loss, the uncertainty. She had refashioned herself and returned to her friends, but underneath she was still unsure, still the girl from Jakku, scrounging in the sand to find scrap for food, staring up at the stars and dreaming. 

“Rey!” Finn was calling her over, waving his arms as though she couldn’t see him from several meters away, not even in the tree line. 

“General,” she called back, as light-hearted as she could manage. She had been at peace when she returned from Tatooine. Broken, but determined. Now she was simply broken, falling apart and searching desperately for meaning as those around her continued to build upon their successes and their lives. 

“Are you coming? Dinner?” He asked as she moved towards him slowly, drawn to his natural warmth, his openness. And then Poe was at his side, arm slinging over Finn’s shoulders. Rey couldn’t help the frisson of annoyance at the sight, the easy camaraderie that she struggled to feel with others so obvious between these two. 

“Haven’t broken my droid again, have you?” Poe asked, teasing, and she smiled weakly at him. They both knew BB-8 was recharging in Poe’s quarters. They’d been running diagnostics for days straight, and they’d both had to practically force the droid into its station, awkward surrogate parents navigating the life and custody of their hyperactive droid child. 

“Are you alright?” Finn stepped closer, voice lowering, dislodging Poe and reaching out to touch her elbow. Poe’s frown echoed Finn’s concern, and Rey firmed her smile, straightening up the try and exude a confidence she didn’t feel. 

“I’m fine, just … tired …” Poe’s gaze moved from her to the entrance to the cell block at her back. He made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat, but Finn remained oblivious and fixated on her. She found she didn’t like the speculative look in Poe’s eyes when he looked back at her. It was easy to forget he was the leader of the Rebellion now, that there was more going on in his head than how fast he could push his X-wing. 

“Did you want me to bring you some dinner then? We don’t have to go to the mess,” Finn’s thumb rubbed at her arm, and he pulled her in slightly closer, though he hardly seemed aware he was doing it. Around them ground crew worked, oblivious to the trio, dodging parked aircraft and tree branches as they went about their checks and reviews. 

“No, no, I’ll go to the mess, really I’m fine,” she nudged him in the shoulder, pulling on her reserves to feign enthusiasm. “Quit worrying about me, it’s embarrassing.” He laughed, pulled her in completely so his arm was over her shoulders now, hugging her to his side. It wasn’t his fault she felt this way, and it wasn’t really the ex-General’s, either. It was the loss, sitting heavy in her heart, staining everything grey.

“Someone has to worry about the almighty Jedi,” Finn said as he began to pull her in the direction of the Mess. Rey chose to watch the people around them rather than respond. She hated being the Resistance Jedi. She hated being heir to the Sith. But it was part of who she was, and something she had to come to terms with. She was a Skywalker now, by choice, and the balance she strove to enact was something she had yet to find in herself. She was envious of those around her, their drive, their purpose, their lack of doubt. A serious battle had been won, as well as many following skirmishes, and they all continued on bravely, secure in that what they were doing was right. 

If only she could be that secure.

It wasn’t until they’d reached the Mess, and they’d both sat down with trays of food that Finn looked around suddenly. 

“Where’d Poe go?” He asked. Rey was already halfway through her plate, a habit she couldn’t seem to break when confronted with food. She swallowed quickly, rubbing her hands across her thighs as she looked up at him, and then around the room of familiar faces. None of them was the thorn-in-her-side pilot. 

“Maybe he went to check on BB?” She suggested, picking up a roll and pulling it apart as she searched the room again. 

“Maybe,” Finn said, focusing on the door.

“Tell me about the next mission,” she said to distract him. “Apparently I’m involved this time?”

“We need a good pilot,” he grinned, successfully diverted.

***

“What did you say to her?” Poe braced himself arms folded over his chest, legs apart, as he started down at the prisoner. The former General blinked his eyes open and looked directly at him. “What did you say to Rey?” He pressed. He should have locked the entrance to the block, made sure that no one but the service droid could have access to him.

“Nothing,” was the soft response. A pale hand rose and splayed across the bandages, directly over the blaster burn Poe had personally seen. Hugs had been a mess of open torso and burning flesh. It was miraculous he’d been still alive when they found him on that dust bowl. Evidently someone had deemed Hux worthy enough to try and rescue, not that the Resistance had been able to ask exactly who that someone was until now. Poe grunted at his response, weighing up his options. The right thing to do would be to wait until he was healed a little more. The bacta had done its job, but that didn’t mean he was back to capacity yet. And there were people here who were good at interrogation, at wheedling out the important things.

Unfortunately Poe had never really been good at waiting. He was getting better, he had to do Leia proud, but Rey had been sharp edges just moments ago, more of a shadow than a woman. Haunted. Far more so than she had been recently, far more than she wanted anyone else to realise. Finn might be blind to it, but Poe had noticed. He recognised the look, and seen it in the mirror enough to know it. She was drowning under the weight of her responsibilities, just like he had, like he was. Not like Finn who kept flourishing under it, growing into a person that Poe wished he could be. 

Waiting was always difficult, he acknowledged as he punched in the code for the door and pulled it open. Hux followed his movements, still too weak to sit up on his own. But his head turned to watch Poe enter the room, door open behind him. Poe wasn’t too concerned, even if Hux could walk and get past him, he’d be caught quickly by the time he made it to the surface. The only way out was across the flight deck. His preferred name, not Finn’s. There was no deck and too many trees for the former stormtrooper. So it was the flight deck. 

“So how’d you get out?” Poe asked, sprawling himself out in the tiny metal chair beside the tiny metal table in the cell. 

“I was shot for helping you escape,” Hux said, turning back to stare up at the ceiling. Poe studied his profile for a long moment, idly wondering if it was the blood-loss that made him so pale, or if Hux had always looked so delicate. Perhaps it was the uniform that made him look so formidable. Without the black, wearing loose pants and an open shirt to accommodate the bandages, he looked more like a cadet, broken in training, waiting to be sent home from the Academy. A tech analyst more than a warrior. Poe snorted, amused at his own thoughts.

“That amuses you, then.” Hux spoke with such disdain, but the edges of his Imperial accent were faded, likely with exhaustion. His words were so soft. 

“No, no, I was thinking about something else … so they tried to execute you for being the spy?”

“Yes.” 

“And then what?” Poe scratched at his chin, watched as the Generals cheek twitched, tensing and relaxing against unspoken words. His pulse throbbed in his neck, the vein blue against his almost translucent skin. Poe couldn’t help but glance down at his own hands, black stained with grease, but heavily tanned under that. Would he look like Hux if he’d only known life on a Destroyer? 

“I died,” Hux finally said, an exhalation more than an announcement. “And now I’m tired.” He closed his eyes, hands folded over the blaster wound, as though reposed for death. Poe sat and watched him until the ex-General’s breathing evened out, features relaxing completely as actually fell asleep with Poe in the room. Either he was an idiot, truly without fear, or still physically worn out from his near death experience. It was most likely a mixture of all three. 

Poe left the room quietly, making sure the door was locked behind him, before trudging back to his rooms. He wasn’t overly hungry, and he knew Finn would bring him food later, once he was missed at dinner. The guy was so eager to please, and so genuine in it. Poe rubbed at his face as he sprawled back on his bunk. BB whirred gently from his port, still in low-power mode but recognising he wasn’t alone. Poe rubbed at his eyes again, dragged his fingers down his cheeks and scratched at the beard forming over his chin. 

He didn’t know what to do.

They had a high-value prisoner in their cell block, an almost ended war and a new government beginning to form. 

He didn’t know what any of it meant for him. For his people.

They still had things to do, spies to weed out, encampments to dig up, destroyers to coerce into surrender or to blow up. But there was an after now, looming closer and heavier, and the influx of people coming to their aid now that the Final Order had been brought down was phenomenal. A little late to the party, but still appreciated. Although their saviour attitudes were a little hard to swallow on occasion. 

“What am I gonna do, Buddy?” He asked, more to himself, but BB-8 answered anyway, trilling softly. “I can’t be a pilot forever,” he chided. “There’s no war. This New New Republic will probably disband the military again.”

 _They could make you a Military Leader,_ BB-8 didn’t sound certain as he said it, and Poe laughed, a cynical, sick sound he was glad no one was around to hear. 

“I’m a fuck up, Buddy, and I have the record to prove it. No matter what I’ve accomplished in this war, they’ll never let me near a command post again.” He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyelids, seeing sparks of white in the dark. “I could always become a farmer. Dad would love it. You could make some good friends with the tech…” BB-8’s answer was exceptionally dry and sarcastic, earning a more genuine bark of laughter. “You’ve been spending too much time with Rey.”

_She is sad_

“I know Bud.”

_You’re sad_

“Yeah.” Poe said, “Yeah I guess I am.”


	2. Chapter 2

Rey sat in the war room, listening to the different factions squabbling. She’d been invited out of some sort of obligation, but judging by Poe’s glazed expression, she wasn’t the only bored one in attendance. 

“No,” Finn was arguing with another delegate about who knew what. He was oddly in his element, passionate about whatever had gotten his hackles up.

“Shouldn’t you be doing this?” Rey asked softly, nudging Poe in the thigh with her knee. She was curled up on her chair, trying not to let her bum go numb. She still wasn’t used to sitting for long periods of time, unlike Poe who had barely moved, despite the fact that once someone got him going it was hard to make him stop again. 

“He’s doing fine,” Poe said, not even looking in Finn’s direction. “He’s a natural.”

“A natural at what?”

“Whatever it is he’s doing,” Poe waved a vague hand into the air before them, as though it could explain everything. Rey frowned and leant closer. 

“What are they doing?”

“We are currently watching the fall of the New New Republic.” He said as though announcing the weather. “Everyone wants different things. They don’t trust each other after the Hosnian System. Too many suspicious absences and survivors.”

“Can’t you change their minds?” She felt a spike of panic. The Government was supposed to fix things, a unanimous body to make things better. That was what they’d been fighting for, so many voices could make decisions, instead of one. 

“They won’t listen to me,” Poe said, sinking further into his chair. “I’ve tried,” he added as she opened her mouth to object. “Trust me, Rey, I’ve tried. This isn’t the first meeting, and they’re just getting worse. Finn has more standing, they trust his judgement because of where he’s from, can speak from experience. But they don’t want to hear from me, and Leia wouldn’t have been able to do much more than I’ve been able to.” He shrugged, an indifferent motion at direct counterpoint to Rey’s explosion of uncertainty. “There’s no room for heroes in this new story they’re building.”

“What were we fighting for, then?” She asked, pressed shoulder to shoulder with him so no one could hear. Poe glanced at her face, drawn out of whatever place he’d been in. Dark curls flopped over his forehead, shadowing his gaze,

“We were fighting for freedom,” he said, as if the answer were obvious, but then his expression became shuttered. “We fought to help people like Finn, to help people like you, to help them,” he waved another hand to encompass the room of Senators and aide’s. “But politics is a monster of its own, and that is a battle I am not equipped to fight.”

“But you’re so disgustingly charming,” Rey tried to tease, to lift the mood a little. It earned her a smirk, his eyes almost twinkling with glee. 

“I’m glad you noticed,” he leaned in even closer, as though they were the only two people in the room. Even though she knew what he was doing, she felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “You know-” he said, voice thick with promise, when a shout distracted the both of them. Finn was sitting again, and it was two other spokes-species yelling at one another, looking ready to draw blood. “That,” Poe said, his disinterest forced, his expression too tense for his words to be anything but, “is the start of territory lines being drawn in the stars.”

***

“I’m heading to the rec center,” Finn said as they disembarked. He was the only one still lively after their week long expedition on failed negotiations. Rey and Poe glanced at each other, apparently in silent agreement for once.

“I’ve got something I need to do first,” Poe said, which wasn’t exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth either. He saw Rey open her mouth, close it, open it again, and jumped in to save her. “I asked Rey to have a look at BB, he said he’s feeling a little tingly after a power surge in the ships charging bay. I’d feel better if she did it.” Finn shrugged, as if it was nothing. 

“Pretty sure Rose is free,” he said, “or she will be after orders from the General.” He grinned and strode away. Rey sighed at Poe’s side, fiddling nervously with her forearm wraps. 

“Thanks,” she said, turning towards him, as though she didn’t want everyone to see their conversation. “I just-”

“It’s nothing personal, I get it, hey,” he ducked his head slightly to meet her gaze. “Rey, I get it, I do.” She nodded stiltedly, glancing away quickly. He resisted the impulse to tuck her flyaway hair behind her ears. Instead he rested a hand on her upper arm, rubbing the bare skin there. “There’s a lot going on right now and after everything-”

“It’s a lot,” she agreed, unusually soft. “It’s just … dissonant,” she struggled to find that final word, and didn’t seem satisfied with it once it was out. Poe remained quiet, waiting for her to continue. “Everyone is so … excited, eager, and yet the government bodies are just … wasting it.” She hugged her arms around her torso. “Ever since I got back it’s just …”

“You miss him,” Poe said with surprise, and the realisation was like a sucker punch to the gut. He didn’t know how he’d missed it, how they’d all missed it, it was so obvious. Her face went red, expression sullen. “No, no, hey,” he grabbed her shoulders before she could turn away. “Rey, no, hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed about. I … your minds were linked, right?” She nodded slightly, no longer meeting his eyes again. “I can’t even imagine, even with … I mean, no accounting for taste right?” He laughed, and it was far more genuine than it probably should have been, but the conversation was odd and she was grinning slightly in response. “Shouldn’t you be talking to Finn about this? Aren’t you guys, like-?” Her shoulders rose and fell stiltedly as she stepped out of his grip and moved down the ramp of the Falcon. Poe followed her curiously. 

“No, we’re friends,” she said, and her cheeks were red again. There was definitely a story there that Finn hadn’t been kind enough to share, which was rather rude considering they were supposed to be best buds. “It’s not something I really think he’d want to hear … especially now with the Council and what’s going on …”

“We can’t put a dent in his optimism.”

“No,” Rey agreed.

“He’s the one keeping all of this together,” Poe didn’t mean to say it, and especially not loud enough for anyone to hear, but Rey did. The look she shot him was calculating. They didn’t get on all the time, Rose had said something about the two of them being hot-headed and stubborn, but now he was starting to wonder if it was something else. Something that ran a little deeper than just flaring tempers. Two lost ships in a storm. She seemed to come to the same conclusion as she faced him again.

“I want to find him,” she said. “I need to find him.”

“Ben? But he’s dead.” It wasn’t quite a question, but it was, and Poe felt more than a little out of his depth. He didn’t doubt the Force, believed in it whole-heartedly actually, but this seemed to be something else.

“I know he is,” her admittance only confused him further, “but there has to be a way. I feel … Poe, in me there’s this space where he used to be, and it hurts.” He felt like it should have been Finn standing here, listening to this. But then he remembered a drunken conversation with his father, a few years ago, as they reminisced about the woman his mother had been, about what her death had meant, about how he lived now, still expecting to see Sharas face when he woke up, to hear her laughter, the sound of her ships engine coming in to land. Poe’d never experienced it first hand, not even with Leia’s death, but perhaps he could understand, just slightly, that level of missing devotion. And he found himself mildly jealous, which was ridiculous. But to have that attachment to someone, that their absence was a physical burden? He scratched at his head, digging fingers into hair that was a week overdue for a wash. 

“I want to help.” He said. 

“What?” Rey looked at him fast, head snapping in his direction, as unbelieving of his words as he was. 

“It’s just that, you know. Finn seems to have a handle on everything here, and we’re doing well against the remnants of the Order. I’m not saying we just stop with that, but, on the side … I can help you. I want to help you.”

“Poe …”

“I mean,” he continued, talking over her, embarrassed by the warm way she was looking at him, as though he was now more than BB-8s carer and the repeated destroyer of her precious Falcon. “We have a First Order General downstairs who spent a lot of time with your force boyfriend and his Master, so he should know something, right?”

***

“Absolutely not!” Hux was on his feet, still a little unsteady, but his spine was stiff, arms crossed to keep his shirt closed over his torso. “Are you mad? That wild cur is dead! I ended up here because that’s how much I wanted it!” Poe shot out his handed before Rey could advance on the red-head.

“We never did finish our little chat,” Poe said, wondering if he should put Rey on the other side of the glass. She was a seething mass of rage beside him, and it didn’t take a force user to detect it.

“I died, and now I’m here.” Hux flicked his head to get his fringe out of his eyes. It was a floppy mess without the gel it had always been styled with. 

“Someone had to put you in that escape pod,” Poe teased, “a girlfriend, perhaps? Maybe Ren himself? Maybe the hate’s a little too personal between the two of you. A bad break up?”

“Poe!” Rey hissed, but Hux’s response drowned out hers. The snarl was visceral, features contorting into something resembling the man who had graced First Order holovids and propaganda. 

“He was a fool, a monster. So wrapped up in his own personal vendettas he couldn’t see what he was squandering! I spent my whole life-” he cut off there, breathing heavily, hands clutched to his torso. “Why would I help bring such a creature back?”

“He isn’t the same anymore,” Rey hissed.

“No, he’s dead.” Hux sniffed disdainfully. 

“He died as Ben Solo,” she said, and even Poe was a little skeptical about her line of argument. Hux seemed just us unmoved. “This isn’t about bringing balance to the force,” she tried again, her veneer of calm extremely unconvincing. “This is about bringing balance to me.”

“The poor little desert girl can’t accept reality,” Hux turned his back on them, evidently deciding the grey stone of his cell wall was more interesting. Poe could hear Rey grinding her teeth. His own fists were clenched, but he forced them flat and settled himself down in the seat. Rey glanced at him in consternation, but he merely smiled. 

“Have you accepted your reality?” He asked. Hux’s shoulders rose slightly, tensing as the words registered. “Like you said, you’re here now, a prisoner of the Resistance, and as we speak there is a council forming to replace the one you destroyed in the Hosnian System. Now I know the Resistance doesn’t believe in capital punishment. We believe in reform, in trying to do best, but you’re not giving me a lot of hope about your current mindset, and I don’t think the new council will be really up for keeping you alive.”

“Are you trying to blackmail me into cooperation? You think that the threat of death is going to convince me? I’m already dead.”

“No,” Poe said, tapping the heel of his boot against the ground. Hux flinched minutely with each thud. Rey was watching Poe curiously now. 

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything, just stating the facts. Like the fact that the First Order is on the out and out. Can’t even get back to the Unknown Regions with their collective tails between their legs. There’s no hiding anymore, it’s the end. So, fact one. Fact two,” he held up his fingers, though Hux wasn’t watching to see them, “You will die here. Fact number three,” he paused deliberately, satisfied when Hux turned his head ever so slightly, watching from his periphery. “Fact number three: You deserve to be executed for your crimes, but the Galaxy is about to become a very big, divided place.”

“Indeed?” Hux said, and Poe was relieved he wouldn’t be forced to spell it out. That was a line he didn’t think he could cross. Actually committing potential treason though? Apparently that could be in his repertoire of questionable acts. At least Leia wasn’t here to judge him. Rey was being suspiciously quiet, having retreated to the door. “And what is it that you expect me to do? I don’t believe in this Force nonsense.”

“You saw him use it all the time,” Rey was disbelieving. Hux turned more towards them, enough for Poe to see the eye roll. 

“Temper tantrums and hocus pocus.”

“A literal man, huh?” Poe couldn’t help but tease. Hux glanced at him, derision wrinkling his nose. 

“I believe in science and facts.”

“But-” Rey began. 

“But you spent a lot of time with him, and Snoke.” Poe interrupted. 

“A hazard of the job, I suppose,” he allowed reluctantly. His knuckles were white on his shirt, the skin around his mouth tight. Poe gestured to the bed, for him to sit. Hux didn’t move. 

“And you would have … heard things?” Poe said, to keep the conversation flowing, coax the ex-General to where he needed him to be. Poe wasn’t stupid enough to think he could outwit Hux, but the man was exhausted and in pain, so he could be moderately manipulated.

“If you’re asking whether I heard them discussing the topic of resurrection, then I’m afraid I must disappoint you,” Hux huffed, body language the epitome of offended Imperialist, even if his exterior no longer quite matched.

“Do you know where he went, all the time?” Rey asked suddenly, cutting in. Poe glanced over his shoulder at her. There was a desperate set to her face, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach, just like when he’d seen her outside the cells two weeks prior. 

“I kept tabs,” the ex-General was assessing her as well, calculating, before he fixed his attention back on Poe. “I know where he went on his training exercises, I know where Snoke sent him, where he was when he found Exegol. I know there was a backwater planet he liked to visit. He said it was part of his training, but he was never sent there.” He shrugged, an overly delicate move, before he settled himself carefully on the edge of the bed, as though he weren’t exhausted, as though Poe hadn’t suggested he do any such thing. He sniffed again, smoothing the tops of his pants down, hands shaking ever so slightly. 

“Would you happen to remember the coordinates?” Poe asked as pleasantly as he could. He didn’t want to give Rey any false hope, but perhaps this could be closure for her. They certainly weren’t going to show up and find Ben sitting under an umbrella on a beach, sipping from a fruit husk, waiting for them. The man was dead, but he felt like he owed Rey to help her. That perhaps he needed some sort of closure too. 

“I may do,” Hux said finally, apparently satisfied with the state of his clothing. 

“Well then, Armitage Hux,” he enjoyed the flinch there, at the use of the man's full name. Hopefully it would be satisfying enough for the monumentally bad plan he was cooking up on the fly. “Would you like to take a day trip with us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come visit me on my [Tumblr](http://darth-ej.tumblr.com/)!  
> Feel free to leave a comment below, I try to respond to everything.  
> Any and all kudos is much appreciated and only helps to feed this authors undying need for approval <3

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on my [Tumblr](http://darth-ej.tumblr.com/)!  
> Feel free to leave a comment below, I try to respond to everything.  
> Any and all kudos is much appreciated and only helps to feed this authors undying need for approval <3


End file.
